


Mors Florum

by Iazarus_rising



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Geralt with hanahaki disease, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, a bit of violence but it's not graphic, it's just straight-up angst, just a warning, nothing happy here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:20:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22451014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iazarus_rising/pseuds/Iazarus_rising
Summary: When Geralt first heard the prophecy, he didn’t think much of it. As far as he knew, there were no three-horned beasts left in the world, so, in his mind, the foretelling was probably false. Besides, it didn’t even rhyme. Everyone knew that every good prophecy had to rhyme.He forgot about the matter fairly quickly, more important things to ponder on.But the three-horned beast was anything if not patient. So it waited.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 18
Kudos: 217





	Mors Florum

When Geralt first heard the prophecy, he didn’t think much of it. As far as he knew, there were no three-horned beasts left in the world, so, in his mind, the foretelling was probably false. Besides, it didn’t even rhyme. Everyone knew that every good prophecy had to rhyme.

He forgot about the matter fairly quickly, more important things to ponder on.

But the three-horned beast was anything if not patient. So it waited.

//

It all started on the hill, with the words Geralt would remember until his dying day. Words he regretted saying the second his mouth closed.

“If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take _you_ off my hands!” He didn’t mean those words, not really. He turned his back on the bard, still angry, his hands shaking and his teeth clenched together. He could hear the ragged breath behind him, he could hear Jaskier’s throat clenching. 

He heard the tremble in his voice when the bard said “Right, then.”.

And then Jaskier turned on his heel and left.

One part of Geralt wanted to go after him, to turn around, say “I’m sorry. I’ll walk you to the camp, it’s too dangerous.”. One part of him wanted to scream after the bard, beg him to wait, he’d hurt himself going alone, please Jaskier, don’t go.

But the other part, the part that was still fuming, still absolutely _furious_ , won. And Geralt stayed in his spot, listening to Jaskier leaving, the sound of his cries echoing across the mountains and finding their way right into Geralt’s ears.

Geralt stood there for two days, just in case someone would come back.

No one did.

Nothing happened.

//

Two years had passed since the hill. The words Geralt said still echoed in his heart, burned into his very soul. A brand he would never shake, a scar that would never heal.

He hated himself for it.

Jaskier was the only person that kept up with him voluntarily. Not bound by Destiny, by fate, by the stupid Law of Surprise. He was there, for 22 years, just because he wanted to. And Geralt didn’t learn to appreciate it in time. 

He was so _stupid_.

He tried finding the bard, once. He tracked him down to one of the inns in Novigrad. He looked into the window and saw him there, standing on the stage, bewitching the crowd with his voice. A smile brandished his lips, his eyes were glistening with excitement. Geralt knew that look all too well, he loved that look on Jaskier.

He loved Jaskier, he knew that now.

Just as he was about to open the door, he hesitated. Jaskier’s voice reached him, he was singing a sad ballad of broken hearts and cruel loves and Geralt knew it was about what he had said. The bard’s voice was filled with sadness, and Geralt just couldn’t make himself enter the inn.

There were not a lot of things Geralt feared. A higher vampire would strike a gust of anxiety into his heart, but that would be it.

But the moment Geralt heard the words of the song, the moment Geralt realized just how brokenhearted Jaskier was, because of him? He got scared. He got scared the bard would never forgive him, that he would never get his friend back.

And so Geralt of Rivia turned on his heel and walked away.

He never tried finding Jaskier after that.

//

Not long after the Novigrad incident did Geralt realize something was terribly wrong.

It started with a pressure in his lungs. He could feel something was filling them up from the inside. It was getting progressively difficult to breathe, but the witcher had no idea what was going on. Witchers couldn’t really get sick, but just to be sure, he went to a medic to get himself checked.

The medic had no idea what was going on, either.

So Geralt continued on with his life, trying to grow accustomed to the newly shrunk capacity of his lungs. He kept wondering what could that be, until one snowy day in Kaer Mohren.

He was sitting by a table with Eskel and Lambert, playing Gwent and telling stories of everything that had happened to them that year. Geralt was having a good time, when suddenly something started forcing its way up his throat.

The Witcher coughed a few times, trying to get rid of the irritating feeling, covering his mouth with his hands. When he stopped, and looked at his palms, horror struck him.  
He was holding a single flower. A beautiful, yellow flower, with spots of blood on the petals.

A buttercup. Jaskier.

He looked at his colleagues, both of them brandishing looks of pity.

Maybe it wouldn’t be a three-horned beast that would kill him, after all. Maybe it would be beautiful, delicate flowers, bearing the name of his lost love.

//

The illness got progressively worse after that. At first the cough would appear fairly seldom, once, maybe twice a day. He would only spit out singular flowers, all of them covered in specks of his own blood.

After a month or so the cough worsened. It became more frequent. Nothing that would make Geralt useless, but still irritating.

It was amusing to Geralt. At least at first. Who would have thought that a witcher, a being that was believed to be devoid of feelings, would fall prey to this particular disease? A disease so strongly dependant on love?

He wasn’t even sad about this. He knew what it meant. He knew his heart still belonged to the blue-eyed bard, but apparently, the blue-eyed bard’s heart moved on. And Geralt was happy about that. It meant Jaskier would be able to find happiness with someone else, someday. Maybe someone who wouldn’t say the things Geralt had said.

Maybe someone who wouldn’t be as emotionally constipated as Geralt was.

So he was glad for Jaskier. He was glad his lost love would be happy, eventually.

Geralt didn’t have to be. He could suffer for them both.

//

It took a full year for the disease to reach its final form. It rendered Geralt completely useless on contracts, it made him unable to sleep, coughing up entire plants, complete with the stems and roots and those beautiful, yellow flowers.

Geralt never stopped his journey on the Trail. He kept accepting contracts, nearing death a few times because of the cough. As Vesemir said, witchers didn’t die in the comfort of their own bed. Geralt didn’t want to be an exception.

He was reckless. Perhaps he was searching for Death at that point, but he didn’t care. He’d lived enough.

So he took a contract for a Leshy.

Those monsters were hard to kill for a witcher in their prime. For a sick one? It was a death sentence.

But Geralt stopped caring a while back. So he accepted the task, drank a few elixirs, and went out into the forest.

It didn’t take him long to find the monster. They were big creatures, after all, towering and imposing. It didn’t take long for the Leshy to attack him, either.

Geralt run out of breath quicker than he’d anticipated. He saw the roots sprouting from the earth just behind him, he saw them with a corner of his eye, but instead of rolling away, he trembled with a spasm of cough, the roots piercing him in three places, pinning him to the ground.

One branch went straight through his heart, the other two made their home in Geralt’s lungs. With his last breath, the witcher coughed up one last buttercup. The plant stayed in his parted lips, a silent apology, never uttered aloud.

The three-horned beast waited, and it got its prize.

//

Jaskier was sitting next to the driver, strumming his lute and singing songs of love and adventures. He managed to talk himself into a ride through the forest, a chance to rest his feet from the walking.

Then, from the corner of his eye, he spotted a heap of beautiful, yellow flowers, growing in the weird shape of someone’s body.

The man driving the carriage noticed the shift in the bard’s attention and looked the same way.

“Ah, that. Must be the witcher.”

“Huh? What witcher?” Jaskier asked, going against the feeling in his gut.

“I don’t remember his name, but he came here, coughing up a storm of these flowers, and took a contract for a monster. The beast must’ve killed him.”

“Oh. Aren’t we in danger then?”

“No, someone else came here after him and finished the job. The monster’s long gone, sir.”

“Ah, alright. Let’s move on, then.” Jaskier said, returning to his lute and to his songs.  
Jaskier didn’t know the name of the flowers. Maybe if he knew, he’d leave the carriage, maybe he’d recognize the body underneath.

But he didn’t. And so Geralt’s body stayed there, under the heap of flowers, his name long forgotten by the folk.

His name long forgotten by Jaskier.

The three-horned beast sneered. It had caused more than death.

It had caused oblivion.

**Author's Note:**

> hey, it me. again.
> 
> so yeah, i'm a sucker for the hanahaki disease trope so this was bound to happen.
> 
> in the books, ciri utters a prophecy, that geralt will die because of three horns. so i took it and i turned it around a bit.
> 
> please leave a comment if you liked (can i say that? can you like angst?) it!


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